5.  The applicant was born in 1963 and lives in Budapest. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.
6.  On 21 February 2003 the applicant, at the material time Vice-President of the Workers’ Party (Munkáspárt) – a registered left-wing political party – was a speaker at a lawful demonstration in the centre of Budapest. The demonstration took place at the former location of a statue of Karl Marx, which had been removed by the authorities. On his jacket, the applicant wore a five-pointed red star (hereinafter “the red star”), 5 cm in diameter, as a symbol of the international workers’ movement. In application of Article 269/B § 1 of the Criminal Code, a police patrol which was present called on the applicant to remove the star, which he did.
7.  Subsequently, criminal proceedings were instituted against the applicant for having worn a totalitarian symbol in public. He was questioned as a suspect on 10 March 2003.
8.  On 11 March 2004 the Pest Central District Court convicted the applicant of the offence of using a totalitarian symbol. It refrained from imposing a sanction for a probationary period of one year.
9.  The applicant appealed to the Budapest Regional Court (Fővárosi Bíróság).
10.  On 24 June 2004 that court decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the case to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) for a preliminary ruling under Article 234 of the Treaty establishing the European Community. The reference – received at the CJEU on 28 July 2004 – concerned the interpretation of the principle of non-discrimination as a fundamental principle of Community law.
11.  In its order for reference, the Regional Court observed that in several member States of the European Union, such as the Italian Republic, the symbol of left-wing parties is the red star or the hammer and sickle. Therefore, the question arose whether a provision in one member State of the European Union prohibiting the use of the symbols of the international labour movement on pain of criminal prosecution was discriminatory, when such a display in another member State did not give rise to any sanction.
12.  On 6 October 2005 the CJEU declared that it had no jurisdiction to answer the question referred by the Regional Court. The relevant part of the reasoning reads as follows:
“11.  By its question, the national court asks, essentially, whether the principle of non-discrimination, Article 6 EU, Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin (OJ L 180, p. 22) or Articles 10, 11 and 12 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, proclaimed on 7 December 2000 in Nice (OJ C 364, p. 1), preclude a national provision, such as Article 269/B of the Hungarian Criminal Code, which imposes sanctions on the use in public of the symbol in question in the main proceedings.
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13.  By contrast, the Court has no such jurisdiction with regard to national provisions outside the scope of Community law and when the subject matter of the dispute is not connected in any way with any of the situations contemplated by the treaties (see Kremzow, paragraphs 15 and 16).
14.  It is clear that Mr Vajnai’s situation is not connected in any way with any of the situations contemplated by the provisions of the treaties and the Hungarian provisions applied in the main proceedings are outside the scope of Community law.
15.  In those circumstances, it must be held, on the basis of Article 92 § 1 of the Rules of Procedure, that the Court clearly has no jurisdiction to answer the question referred by the Fővárosi Bíróság.”